Wrapping up the tale

THIRD BOOK IN THE BEACH TRILOGY MAKES A POWERFUL IMPACT

"One of the finest Canadian crime series in decades."

Blues singer Buddy Blaine is overjoyed with his summer gig at Tuffy’s on the beach strip. In exchange for performing two sets a day, he’s awarded room and board, a few hundred bucks a week, and the attention of 40-something Beach Strip celebrity Josie Marshall. Plus the friendship of gorgeous and soon-to-be wealthy Abby Bergen, star of Tuffy’s beach volleyball team.

But when Abby is found in Buddy’s room garroted with a string from his guitar, his sunny world turns dark and dangerous. Especially when homicide detective Drew Deforest, who has all the grace of a hungry pit bull, leads the murder investigation.

Deforest and his team find themselves dealing with a cast of characters that includes Tuffy’s hot-shot manager, an infatuated witness to Abby‘s impromptu strip-tease performances, a shady night watchman, and various others. Then, like it or not, Josie Marshall becomes entangled in the investigation and an unexpected romance.

The tension climaxes with a midnight conflagration and a stunning solution to the mystery. Or, as one of Buddy’s original tunes puts it:

Terror we expect
But love always takes us
By surprise.

Now available at independent bookstores plus Indigo & Amazon

THE SEQUEL TO BEACH STRIP

Here's the second book in the Beach trilogy, published by At Bay Press. Tough and Gritty, BEACH BLONDE takes the reader on a hairy ride of violent action with a smattering of dark humour.

AN EXCERPT:

And just like that the guy was standing again, his shadow straight up like he was daring Heckle to do it. Heckle Dunne never needed two green lights to cross the street. He took a step forward and fired.

Like catching a baseball in a mitt, that’s how firing the .38 felt, like the ball coming straight down the line to you from third base and into your glove. He’d played some baseball, wasn’t bad either, handling shortstop or second...

The shadow froze in place with the shot, no sound of glass breaking, just the shadow stiffening and giving Heckle the next shot, this one where it needed to be. He took another step forward, raising the Armscor to align it with the shadow's head and this shot seemed louder. The shadow dropped out of sight and Heckle was gone.

If you haven't met Josie yet (And discovered the horror of the body beneath the bridge!) – here's your chance.

"I'd rather laugh in bad taste than cry in good taste."

That’s how Josie Marshall deals with the death of her detective husband, Gabe, found naked outside their home on the beach with a bullet in his brain. Everyone calls it suicide. Josie knows it isn’t . . . but fears it could be. After all, she had provided Gabe with a motive.

But when a horrific slaying occurs literally at her feet, she knows Gabe was murdered, and her determination to prove it carries her toward dark corners of the beach strip and exposes the darker sides of its residents. When a chance remark leads Josie to the astonishing truth of Gabe’s death, her story takes a shocking turn that no one could have seen coming.

Winner of a CBC BOOKIE AWARD

"Each new plot wrinkle propels the novel toward the surprising truth about exactly how Gabe died, but Reynolds’ complex heroine is the real star." - QUILL & QUIRE

"Witty, tense and gripping." - PETER ROBINSON

"A tight well-written mystery." - THE GLOBE & MAIL